


Home Worlds

by SqutternutBosh



Series: Torchwood Season 3: What could have been [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 03, F/M, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25881121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SqutternutBosh/pseuds/SqutternutBosh
Summary: Episode 4 of my alternate series 3 with full original TW crew!When an alien ship bursts through the Rift and crash lands down the road from Ianto's sister, all of his carefully kept secrets start to unravel.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Johnny Davies/Rhiannon Davies
Series: Torchwood Season 3: What could have been [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735756
Comments: 24
Kudos: 113





	Home Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's commented and left kudos on this series so far, it's so motivating! I know a lot of you were looking forward to this Ianto-centric episode, so I hope you enjoy it!

‘So, it’s a sex toy?’

Owen’s question lingers in the Hub air as he dangles the bracelet Ianto has handed to him up in front of his face. Based upon the question he’s just asked, he doesn’t want to get too close to it, holding it by one metal clasp with the tips of his fingers.

It seems to be woven out of some sort of wool, soft and a deep fuchsia pink in colour, plaited with thick strands. A silver disc shines at its centre.

‘It’s a fortieth century Copperniun experience enhancer,’ Ianto says. ‘Or so Jack says.’

‘And it’s not _necessarily_ a sex toy,’ Tosh replies, adjusting her glasses. She’s wearing pink frames today, similar to the bracelet. ‘It intensifies all of the user’s senses, whatever they’re doing. If you eat a strawberry, it’ll be the best damn strawberry you’ve ever had. If you listen to a song that makes you feel sad, you’ll be sobbing on the floor.’

‘Sounds like something people have definitely used when having sex,’ Owen doubles down on his original statement. He should have expected as much when Ianto and Tosh had got excited about something they’d found in the archive. According to Jack, most things down there were weapons or sex toys – Torchwood truly was ready to love and hate its way across the universe. Or shag and blast, at least.

‘Jack did have some stories…’ Ianto says with a smirk. Owen flicks him with the bracelet.

‘Don’t want to know, thank you. You want me to put it on then?’

Tosh nods. Owen pulls up his sleeve to make space for the bracelet and places it over his wrist, wrapping it around so the clasps meet. He fiddles with the ends awkwardly until he manages to clip them together.

As soon as he does, the bracelet changes colour to a deep, mossy green and the silver disc darkens, shining with bronze.

‘Goes better with my outfit now,’ he comments, rubbing at it. It’s a tight fit – not that he can feel it.

‘I think it’s more of a mood ring situation,’ Ianto says, leaning down to inspect the bracelet on Owen’s wrist.

‘What does green mean?’

Ianto shrugs. ‘I haven’t been in a theme park gift shop recently to double-check the mood ring user guide.’

‘I don’t feel any different,’ Owen tells Tosh.

‘No, I didn’t think you would,’ Tosh says. ‘It’s sort of like basic maths, you know, like how anything multiplied by zero equals zero. You don’t have any sense of touch, taste or smell so there’s nothing there for it to amplify. What about your vision though? Or your hearing?’

‘Wouldn’t I have noticed it straight away?’

‘Give it a minute. Concentrate.’

The other two fall still, allowing Owen to assess whether the bracelet is making any difference.

They’re stood up by Tosh’s desk in the Hub, plenty of low-level noise. At first, Owen can’t sense anything new – the faint buzz of computer fans, the low hum of the server, that annoying drip that pisses them all off but that none of them have been able to locate. Standard Hub noise, sort of comforting when nothing’s going wrong, a white noise he’s fallen asleep to many times on the lump sofa.

And then…

He looks between Tosh and Ianto and hears a roaring and pounding and realises it’s the sound of their hearts pumping blood around their bodies, accompanied by a low growl from Tosh’s stomach which suggests she skipped breakfast again and her empty belly is complaining about it. He looks up the water tower and can hear the slither of the water creeping down the metal panels; looking higher still he can hear Myfanwy scratching away in her nest and he notices he can see up into her den too, something that’s usually too high and dark for him to make out.

He spins around at the sudden voices he’s picking up, Jack and Gwen in Jack’s office discussing her pregnancy and what that means for her work situation –

‘I didn’t realise there’d be so many forms,’ says Gwen, her voice like she’s stood right next to him, and Jack laughs, right in his ear.

‘Owen?’ Tosh asks. His ears pick up all the nuances in the way she says his name – the concern, the upward lilt that makes his name a question, the under layer of curiosity that wants to learn everything about what he’s experiencing right now.

His brain can’t parse all this information. Shutting his eyes tight, he fumbles with the bracelet and takes it off.

He flops back onto the sofa and places the bracelet across his knee before rubbing his temples.

‘That was intense,’ he says.

Tosh gets up out of her chair and hovers over him.

‘It needs finetuning, I think,’ she says. ‘I need to see if I can dial down the bits you don’t need and get it to pick up on the senses you lack. It’s over-compensating on your hearing and vision because those are the only things it can do for you.’

‘You can do that?’ he asks. ‘But it’s so… basic looking.’

‘That bit of metal on it isn’t just for show.’

She reaches out a hand and Owen hands the bracelet back to her. It’s still dark green, like a pine tree in winter.

‘It might take a little while but it’s promising, right?’

‘You’ve got my backing, Tosh.’

Over at Tosh’s desk, Ianto is distracted by something on one of her screens. Owen comes to the conclusion that the ringing he can now hear is Rift related and not an after-effect of the bracelet.

‘Uh, Tosh?’ Ianto says lightly. ‘Have we ever been able to track how high up into the atmosphere the Rift is active?’

Tosh hurries over to him, asking,

‘Roughly, why?’

‘Something seems to have come through way above Cardiff and is now-,’

Tosh gasps, looking at what Ianto had been monitoring.

‘Crashing,’ she finishes for him.

*~*TW*~*

There hadn’t been anything they could do to stop whatever it was from crashing. Tosh’s programmes suggested that it was a fairly substantial piece of Rift debris, perhaps the size of a small car, and it had tracked through the sky, passing over Cardiff completely on its arcing trajectory after bursting through the Rift. Through a combination of Rift energy readings and news reports, they’re followed it along the M4 to its potential landing site just outside Newport.

Ianto’s stomach has become steadily more knotted as the SUV has sped along the motorway. Jack’s driving is more wild than usual as Tosh feeds through the latest information about where they need to be headed to and what roads can get them there.

‘Exit here!’ Tosh shouts from her position in the back seat next to Ianto. Poor Tosh and her little legs always get lumbered with the middle seat.

‘Middle lane hogger!’ Jack shouts as he loops around a car sat in the middle lane, not overtaking. He cuts in front of a lorry to take the slip road off the motorway. Ianto looks up at the familiar junction sign and feels the knots in his stomach tighten.

There’s a lot of places this thing could have landed but from the clues he’s been able to decipher in the news reports and various eye witnesses calling into the radio, he knows exactly where they’re heading.

The latest report says the object has landed on the outskirts of a housing estate and nobody has been hurt. He breathes a sigh of relief – no one was hurt. One less thing to worry about.

Gwen looks over at him at his sigh.

‘Alright, Ianto?’ she says.

‘What? Oh, yeah, yeah, fine. Take the next right, Jack, or you’ll re-join the M4.’

From the motorway, they head uphill. Out of the window as they climb, Ianto can see the pale green of the new Severn Bridge crossing the Channel. The tide is out, leaving the Channel basin a barren mudflat.

‘We know where we’re going now?’ Jack asks, driving much too fast for the winding roads they’re taking.

‘Somewhere called the Cromwell Estate,’ Tosh replies, not looking away from her laptop. ‘I’m just getting us the route.’

Ianto pretends like he doesn’t already know the way. It’s not like they need him to give directions.

A few minutes later, Jack turns the SUV onto the estate. Rows of compact houses line the hillside, each one identical to its neighbour. People are scattered everywhere, hanging about in the roads, milling about in doorways. The biggest crowd can be seen in the distance, near a great, grey plume of smoke.

‘This place is a bit scabby,’ Owen observes from the passenger seat, looking out of the window at a group of boys perched on a low wall, smoking. The boys are definitely well below the legal smoking age, caps pulled low over their faces. One of them flips the SUV off and they all laugh.

‘We used to get calls out here a fair bit when I was with the police,’ Gwen says. ‘Car theft, arson, the odd GBH…’

Ianto sinks back into his seat. He knows they have privacy glass on all of the SUV windows but he still feels like he can be seen. He’s already seen a few faces he recognises. Jack eases off the accelerator and rolls the car as close as he can to their crash site, coming to the end of a road that stops at the edge of an expanse of grass.

They all pile out of the car, Ianto more slowly than usual.

He knows this road. He knows that house on the corner. He knows the woman in the doorway, watching them all with very familiar eyes.

As the others grab their kit and make to head towards the crash site, he lingers by the car.

‘You coming?’ Jack asks when he notices Ianto doesn’t seem to be heading off with the group.

‘Thought I’d check back the other way,’ he says. ‘Make sure nothing fell off it.’

‘Alright. Keep in touch.’

‘Yep, will do,’ he mutters to Jack’s back as the others set off.

Then he turns and makes his way towards the house where the woman in the doorway has already started to wave at him.

*~*TW*~*

‘Stand back! Please, keep back!’

Gwen is in full police mode as they shove their way through the ensembled onlookers. Jack leaves her to it, more interested in what they’ve come here for.

Despite all the smoke and the dramatic entrance from the sky, it’s not all that interesting. It’s a metal sphere, which he imagines had been satisfyingly, perfectly round until it had picked up a few dents on impact. It’s singed the grass on landing and dug a deep skid mark through it, but it hasn’t slid far, landing in a shallow crater of its own creation. He walks around it, not yet touching it, trying to assess where the smoke is coming from.

‘Who’re you then?’ a man in the crowd calls out.

‘We’re the people that deal with this,’ Gwen answers. ‘Did you see what happened here?’

‘Bloody came out of the sky, didn’t it? Our kids play here, we don’t need no military lot trying to blow us up.’

Gwen crosses over to the man. He’s tall and bear-like, with tight curls.

‘We’re not the military,’ she says.

‘What’s with his coat then?’

Jack looks up from the dent he’d been inspecting on the sphere and draws himself up to his full height as he tells the man,

‘It’s called fashion. Look it up.’

The man scowls and Jack grins to himself as he gets back to work.

‘What’s your name, sir?’ Gwen asks him.

‘Jonny, Jonny Davies. I live at the end of the road there,’ he points vaguely towards the end of the street, eyes still on Gwen.

‘Well, Mr Davies, I can assure you we’re the right people to deal with this. No one’s been hurt and we’re here to make sure it stays that way.’

Jack still hasn’t figured out where the smoke was coming from but it seems to have stopped.

‘What have you got, Tosh?’ he asks his tech officer, who’s completed a walk around the sphere, scanning it.

‘Some sort of metal alloy,’ she says, ‘not anything we’ve got in our databases. Seems to be quite dense, not sure how easily we can move it. It’s surprisingly cool, actually, considering what’s just happened.’

‘Anything inside it?’

‘Give me a minute.’

Tosh sets off on another walk around the object, scanner on a new setting.

Knowing it’s not hot, Jack reaches a hand out and touches the sphere. It’s cool, like picking up a glass of iced water. He can feel a tug at the back of his memory which makes him feel like he should know what they’re dealing with, but he’s so far been unable to separate it out as an entity distinct from the many spherical spacecrafts he’s seen used by various species in his life. Not the most aerodynamic approach but it’s a shape favoured by plenty of civilisations.

He’s pretty sure nothing has fallen off the thing as there aren’t any signs of joints or solder, so he taps his ear.

‘Ianto?’ he says. ‘Ianto?’

No answer. He finds it hard to believe that Ianto could have gotten himself into any real trouble so he’s a bit miffed not to get a response. He’s about to try again when Tosh pulls him to one side, further away from the crowd. Owen joins them, at something of a loose end as no one is injured.

‘Life signs inside,’ she says. ‘Really quite small ones by the look of it.’

‘Eggs?’ Owen suggests. ‘Baby aliens?’

‘Hard to tell.’

‘Some species are just really small,’ Jack says.

Tosh holds the scanner out to Jack so he can see what she’s looking at. Within the outline of the sphere, he can see about a dozen red blobs, elongated and apparently lying down at different levels within the sphere.

Something clicks in his mind.

‘Pikluns,’ he says. ‘I remember now.’

‘Are they dangerous?’ Owen asks.

‘They can be feisty, people tend to overlook that because they’re so small. Pretty rapid too.’

‘How come they haven’t come out to greet us then?’ Tosh asks. ‘Maybe they were hurt in the crash?’

Jack chuckles. ‘Crashing is _how_ they land. Not a lot of landing gear on a sphere. They’ll be in hibernation pods right now, ready to come out when their ship has assessed that it’s safe for them to do so.’

He looks out at the crowd. Gwen has moved on from crowd control to police liaison, flashing her Torchwood credentials to tell the newly arrived squad car that everything is under control. He’s sure the news crews won’t be far behind.

‘Tosh, can you start feeding some stories to the local press? Make this a non-story, something routine like the ISS chucking out their garbage. Gwen can stay here and keep the locals under control. Owen, you can help me and Ianto set up the crime scene tent around the sphere. Then, it’s a waiting game.’

*~*TW*~*

‘Did I just see you getting out of that flash car?’ Rhiannon asks as Ianto crosses her short front lawn.

She’s bundled up in a big jumper, arms folded across her chest, hands tucked up under her armpits. It’s not that cold a day but Rhiannon always seems to have cold hands, no matter the weather. She used to make Ianto jump when they were kids by pressing the back of one of her freezing hands against his neck.

‘Company car,’ he says. ‘Did you see that thing land?’

He gestures towards whatever it is. He hadn’t managed to get a good view of it past the crowd of people so he has no idea what the others are dealing with right now. Given there’s a gathering around it and no one’s screaming, he assumes they’re all fine and that whatever it is is totally innocuous.

‘Heard it, more like,’ Rhiannon says. ‘Lucky I’ve got Mishe and David in here with me, sometimes the kids will play football up there.’

‘Everyone’s alright then?’

‘Kind of hyper with all the excitement, but yeah, fine. Look, come in, say hello to them.’

Ianto hovers outside the door as Rhiannon steps back into it and waves him in.

‘I’m working,’ he says.

‘Funny civil servant work that,’ she says, not totally without suspicion. ‘Checking on things that come out of the sky.’

‘It’s a… varied job.’

‘You know what it is then?’

‘Not yet. Probably something really boring, actually. I should really get-,’

‘Come on, Ianto, you work all the bloody time, I’m sure they can spare you a few more minutes.’

She fixes him with the kind of stare their mother used to give him when she expected something out of him. It was the sort of stare that could not be negotiated with and could only be appeased by doing as instructed.

Jack’s voice appears in his ear, calling his name. Ianto mutes the comms unit, pretending to scratch his ear. He looks over his shoulder at the site of the crash. Still some smoke but no signs of exploding, he’s sure they’ll be fine. Jack hadn’t sounded worried.

‘Two minutes,’ Ianto says, stepping inside the house after his sister.

‘Micha, David, your uncle’s here!’ Rhiannon shouts up the stairs.

Ianto follows her to the kitchen and takes a seat at the dining table as the sound of his niece and nephew’s footsteps thunder through the ceiling above them.

Rhiannon leans against the kitchen cabinets.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something actually,’ she says.

Ianto doesn’t get a chance to ask her what as David and Micha come clattering into the room.

‘Uncle Ianto, something fell out of the sky!’ Micha says breathlessly.

‘A spaceship,’ David chips in. ‘It-,’

‘Hey, I was telling him!’

‘Don’t fight in front of your uncle,’ Rhiannon reprimands. ‘David, let Micha tell the story. Spaceship, honestly.’

She rolls her eyes and starts to fill the kettle under the tap. He should have known two minutes was going to be at least twenty.

‘It landed near Sian’s house, just down there,’ Micha continues. ‘It went bang! Daddy went to go and look but mum says we have to wait here.’

‘It could be dangerous, Mishe,’ Rhiannon tells the young girl, idly reaching out to straighten one of her pigtails. ‘I wish your dad hadn’t gone down there either.’

‘Did you see it, Uncle Ianto? Is that why you came?’ David asks.

‘Sort of. My colleagues are looking at it now, I should really -,’

‘I’ve boiled the bloody kettle now!’ Rhiannon protests, now busying herself with the mugs and tea bags.

David and Mica appear not to have any more to say but they stand in front of Ianto, expectantly. David clears his throat.

‘Oh! Uh, right.’

Ianto fishes in his inside pocket for his wallet and retrieves two, crisp ten pound notes. He hands one to each of them and they dash off, disappearing back upstairs.

Rhiannon shouts at their retreating backs to say thank you, and the words echo back down.

‘You shouldn’t do that for them,’ she says, placing a cup of tea down in front of Ianto.

‘I notice you didn’t say that until I’d already given them the money,’ he observes, wrapping his hands around the mug. He looks at the pale liquid inside – she’s put too much milk in, just like always. He’d seen her add sugar too, something he’s given up trying to remind her he doesn’t like.

‘Anyway, that other thing I wanted to ask,’ she says.

‘Yeah?’

She picks her tea up and blows on it, creating ripples on the surface.

‘Funny. I’ve been meaning to ask you about it for a while and now… I don’t know how.’

Ianto really isn’t sure where she’s going with this. There’s plenty he’s kept from Rhiannon, particularly in the last few years since he moved away. Almost all of the secrets he has are to keep her and her kids safe, away from Torchwood and the dangerous world Ianto spends almost all of his time in these days.

Has she come across one of the Torchwood stories online? The odd blogger has caught photos of them, others know their names, there are kernels of truth out there no matter what they do to try and squash the rumours down. Too much has happened now for people to really swallow the lies that they used to.

Although, she had seemed sceptical of David’s spaceship theory. Maybe it was for show.

‘Okay, so,’ Rhiannon says after a moment. ‘I’ll tell you what Susan told me and you can just… fill in the gaps or tell me she’s been lying again, you know what she’s like.’

Ianto takes a sip of his tea. He can vaguely recall Rhiannon’s friend Susan, with her taste for leopard print and gossip.

‘Go on then,’ he says.

‘It was a little while ago now but… Susan says she saw you in that posh French restaurant in town.’

‘Yeah?’

‘And you were eating there.’

He can feel his ears start to redden. He’s suddenly acutely aware of where this conversation is heading. He knows exactly the restaurant she’s talking about and he can remember exactly how Jack had behaved when they went there – his treat to Ianto when Gwen got to go to Paris and Ianto had complained he hadn’t been abroad in years. He hadn’t been hoping for anything out of his comments, he’d just been venting, but Jack had insisted.

‘And you were there,’ Rhiannon continues, ‘and you were eating, and you were with a man.’

‘I like good food,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a bit of cash, sometimes me and a mate like to eat somewhere nice.’

‘That’s not what Susan said was happening. She said no way was anybody else getting their legs under that table, no chance.’

Ianto’s cheeks join his ears in burning bright red and he hates that even though he’s a grown man his older sister can still make him blush when he’d barely raise an eyebrow for far more outrageous things. He’s a master of cool and calm but Rhiannon is his undoing.

‘So?’ Rhiannon says. ‘Is she exaggerating or are you, y’know…’

Ianto stares down into his tea. He had intended to have some version of this conversation with Rhiannon, some day, when he’d figured out how to explain it all. When he’d figure out what _it all_ was. Jack being both his boss and immortal made things that little bit more complicated.

‘She said he was very handsome. Like a film star,’ his sister continues.

Ianto sighs. He’s sure Jack would have loved that comment.

‘He is very handsome,’ he relents.

Rhiannon’s eyes go wide.

‘No! Who is he? How did you meet? Can I meet him – no, I don’t want to pressure you, it’s fine, I just… He’s nice though, yeah? You like him?’

Ianto doesn’t think he has words enough to try and address Rhiannon’s questions. It would likely involve telling her things he hasn’t even told Jack yet. Things he’s only just started to admit to himself.

‘It’s complicated. We’re, uh, we still have to figure a few things out ourselves. But yes… I do like him. Quite a bit.’

He drains his mug and avoids Rhiannon’s gaze. He checks his watch and realises how long he’s been gone.

‘That’s all you’re getting out of me,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘I really need to go.’

‘Oh, Ianto,’ Rhiannon groans, also standing. She pulls him into a quick hug which he returns stiffly. She leans back as she pulls away, her hands still on his arms and looks him in the eye. ‘As long as you’re happy.’

‘I am, Rhi,’ he says. ‘I’ve really got to go though, my boss will be waiting.’

She says goodbye and leaves Ianto to show himself out.

He’s barely out of the door when he spots Jack, stood in the middle of the junction, looking about and glancing down at his vortex manipulator. Ianto makes it a few metres away from Rhiannon’s house before Jack spots him and it becomes clear that he’s been looking for Ianto.

‘Where’ve you been?’ he asks, marching over. ‘Did you mute me?’

Ianto grabs Jack’s arm and drags him down the road towards the SUV.

‘I had something to deal with,’ he tells Jack as they walk.

‘Oh? Did the people in that house there see something?’ He cranes his neck to look back at Rhiannon’s house.

They get to the SUV, where Owen is struggling to lift the boot tray and get access to the storage underneath. Ianto is about to nudge him out of the way and unclip the safety buckle that he’s forgotten to undo when he spots Jonny walking past. He ducks around the side of the SUV, pressing himself flat against the car. Rhiannon catching him on the job is one thing but he doesn’t like talking to Jonny at the best of times.

Jack follows him, confused.

‘Ianto? What’s going on? What did the people in that house say?’

‘It’s, uh, it’s not that or anything to do with the – what is it over there, the thing that fell out of the sky?’

‘Piklun spaceship. Small aliens, could be hostile if they’ve decided this is where they want to live now. They’re in hibernation but could come out at any moment. That’s why I was looking for you, you’re the only one who knows how to set the big crime scene tent up.’

‘It’s not that hard,’ Ianto says dismissively, one eye still on Jonny’s back as he heads down the street towards his house.

‘I’ve patched up less complicated spaceships,’ Jack says. He follows Ianto’s eyeline, sees that he’s watching Jonny head down into the house. ‘What is up with you?’

Jonny has gone into the house. Ianto sighs and leans his head back against the SUV, looking up at the sky.

‘You know how my sister and her family still live on the estate I grew up on?’

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s this one.’

‘Oh,’ Jack looks down the street at Rhiannon’s house and tilts his head towards it. ‘In that one?’

‘Yup.’

‘And she saw you?’

‘Yup.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Usual sort of thing. Boring civil servant, probably something boring that fell out of the sky, we’re just here to check.’

‘And she bought that?’

‘Seems to have.’

He doesn’t mention the other conversation he’d had with his sister. He needs to file that one away for later and deal with the more pressing problem at hand – an alien spaceship has crash-landed at the end of his family’s street. The aliens could be hostile and they could also give away years of Ianto’s efforts at covering up what he does to keep them all safe. He knows Rhi would worry if she knew the truth.

If something happens to him though, at least she has her kids and Jonny. Her own family. Torchwood drew Ianto away from all of that, from the idea of a cosy family life and regular Sunday lunches with his sister and her children. What does he have now?

Jack is watching him closely. Ianto can hear Owen muttering a string of curses under his breath as apparently even just getting the tent out of the boot is enough trouble for him.

‘Are you alright?’ Jack asks. ‘Do you need to stand down?’

Ianto straightens up, no longer using the SUV for support. He fixes his tie and jacket.

‘I’ll be fine. I’d rather be here, making myself useful, particularly if they do turn out to be hostile. I can keep them safe.’

‘Alright. No heroics though, you hear me? We don’t know what the Pikluns want here, the Rift has taken them off course so they’re not exactly going to wake up where they thought.’

‘Right.’

‘Do you want to tell the others? About the… situation?’

Ianto sighs. ‘I prefer them to think I was birthed from an alien pod, no strings attached, fully grown. I think I’ve got Owen nearly convinced on that one.’

Jack smiles and drops a hand onto Ianto’s shoulder.

‘If that were true, I’d very much be in the market for one of those Ianto pods.’

*~*TW*~*

With little help from the others, who continue to proclaim that it’s too complicated, Ianto manages to get the crime scene tent set up around the Piklun craft. It’s fairly spacious inside, giving them all room to set up camp chairs alongside the ship, waiting for something to happen. Gwen has succeeded in dispersing the crowds, who lost interest when it became clear nothing was imminently going to blow up, and Tosh’s seeded news stories seem to have put off any real journalists. Ianto’s quite sure they’re all glad not to have to come out to the Estate given its notorious reputation.

Jack is fairly certain that if they sit quietly around, the ship will determine the external environment safe for its occupants to come out into within a few hours so there’s not much for any of them to do now but wait.

Ianto still hasn’t told the others about Rhiannon. He’s been busy with the tent and they’ve all been busy with their own things – Tosh is scanning and studying the ship with Owen’s help, and Gwen is chasing away stragglers. Jack occasionally makes moves to help Ianto, who brushes him away and says it is actually easier to do it himself. He’s now taken up a seat on the edge of the crater the ship has burnt into the ground and is watching Tosh and Owen, asking questions here and there.

Sure that the tent is fully secured and there’s nothing else he can do, Ianto takes the seat next to Jack.

‘The thing with Pikluns is, they’re a coloniser species,’ Jack says, mostly to Ianto but loud enough for the others to hear. ‘Love spreading out through the universe, making planets their own. This could be a scout ship, looking for a new location. I don’t know enough about them or how they go about colonising planets to understand how dangerous that makes them.’

‘They’ll take one look at that shithole out there and be on their way, I reckon,’ Owen says.

‘Owen,’ Jack says, a warning in his voice. Ianto suspects that’s for his benefit but he doesn’t disagree with Owen. There’s a reason he had wanted to get away from the estate.

He suspects Owen would understand that too. He doesn’t know much about their doctor’s childhood other than the occasional reference to what sounds like a pretty horrific mother, but he’d guess Owen grew up somewhere similar to this only with more of a London flavour – Brutalist tower blocks, drug dealers on the street corners, walls so thin you can hear the slap as your neighbour beats up his girlfriend.

Rhi has managed to find a sense of community here but Ianto never felt that. He doesn’t come to see his sister as often as he should not just because Torchwood is so demanding, but because he’s got plenty of memories here that he wants to avoid. He’s just grateful that she at least lives on the other side of the estate, away from the house they grew up in. He hasn’t set eyes on it since the day he moved out.

Owen scrambles up the crater and offers a hand down to Tosh to help pull her up. She takes it and they both settle into the other camp chairs.

‘Thrilling, this is,’ Owen says. ‘Anybody brought a deck of cards?’

Gwen walks into the tent and zips it shut behind her.

‘That should be the last of them for a while,’ she says, taking the final chair.

‘Ooh, I know,’ Owen says. ‘We can play Gwen’s favourite camping game. Who’d you last snog?’

‘Bit of an easy game now,’ Tosh says. ‘We spend too much time together working, I think we all already know each other’s answers.’

‘Mine’s still Rhys,’ Gwen says, sleepily raising a hand. ‘And Tosh’s was lovely Tommy, though I heard Banana Boat tried his best.’

‘ _Definitely_ not my type,’ says Tosh. ‘And does Owen even count in this game?’

‘Hey, I could still get a snog if I wanted!’ Owen protests.

‘I think if you’ve got no sensation in your lips that could get quite messy,’ Ianto points out.

‘And Jack and Ianto’s answer would be each other. I saw them when I came in this morning,’ Tosh finishes her answer to the game.

‘Honestly, you two,’ Gwen says, shaking her head, ‘we need some sort of warning system or rules for the antics you get up to. You know it’s our place of work, right?’

‘Both parties were fully clothed, can I just add,’ says Ianto. It had been an entirely innocent kiss, a sort of ‘have a nice day’ kiss that they’d shared before getting properly into work mode, something they’d fallen into doing recently. Tosh just happened to have come in quietly from the garage and neither had noticed she was there.

‘Well done, Tosh, full marks,’ says Jack. ‘Now, I have a new question for everyone. When was the last time you let someone with tentacles -,’

‘Hello?’

A voice from outside the tent calls over Jack. Ianto is momentarily relieved to be spared from another of Jack’s intriguing yet terrifying tentacle-sex stories but that relief fades when his brain registers whose voice it is.

The bearer of the voice knocks at the door of the tent – as much as one can knock a door made of a poly-canvas blend, anyway - their fist indents the fabric and the zips rattle.

Gwen, closest to the door, gets up and unzips it before Ianto has fully decided what he’s going to do.

‘Can we help you?’ she asks as Rhiannon steps in.

‘I’m Rhiannon, Ianto’s sister,’ she says, ruining any chance Ianto has to improve the situation. ‘I saw you were all still here and wondered if you wanted anything? I can do fish finger sandwiches?’

Ianto can feel the team’s eyes collectively swivel round to land on him. He rushes out of his seat.

‘Rhi, we don’t need -,’ he starts to say, but Jack is closer to her. He gets up and offers Rhiannon his hand.

‘Captain Jack Harkness,’ he says, ‘Ianto’s boss.’

Oh god, it’s all spiralling out of control, Ianto finds himself thinking as he sees Rhiannon shaking Jack’s hand and giving Jack the same up and down scan that anything with a pulse seems to give him. He’s always thought Rhiannon had questionable taste in men but this is _his_ questionable man. And his boss. And an immortal man from the future.

Really, he rarely lets himself consider how complicated it all is. It never feels all that complicated when Jack’s hands and lips are roaming about all the right places.

Right now though, he thinks he should do what he can to keep Rhiannon away from Torchwood.

‘So _you’re_ the one who’s always keeping Ianto so busy?’ says Rhiannon.

‘I’m afraid that is me, so sorry,’ Jack replies with a chuckle.

‘Ah, good, there we go, you’ve met my boss now then, you can go now, Rhiannon, we’re all fine here,’ Ianto says quickly, lifting the tent flap ready to show Rhiannon out.

‘Don’t be rude, Ianto, we’re being offered fish finger sandwiches here,’ says Jack.

‘They were always Ianto’s favourite when we were kids,’ Rhiannon says.

‘Really?’ Jack says and Ianto spots a glint in his eye, as if Rhiannon has brought out all the old family albums full of Ianto’s embarrassing baby photos. It’s as if Jack’s decided that as this is a non-dangerous Torchwood situation with a non-suspicious witness, he might as well mess with Ianto. Ianto starts to plot ways to get revenge.

‘I am quite hungry,’ says Gwen, still stood next to Rhiannon. ‘I’m Gwen, by the way.’

Owen and Tosh also introduce themselves.

‘I’d like to say it’s nice to put a face to a name but Ianto never tells me anything about his job,’ Rhiannon tells them, shaking her head.

‘We do deal with a lot of confidential matters,’ says Jack. ‘The situation here included. But we can trust in your discretion?’

‘Won’t say a word,’ Rhiannon says. ‘Five lots of fish finger sandwiches then?’

‘Sounds wonderful.’

‘Got it. I’ll be back soon!’

Rhiannon leaves, but not before giving the tent one last thorough look around, thorough enough to make Ianto assume her offer of sandwiches was born out of a desire to be nosey, giving her a way to come in and see what was going on.

Ianto has barely made it back to his seat before the questions start.

‘I didn’t know your sister lived here, Ianto,’ says Tosh.

‘I didn’t even know he _had_ a sister,’ says Owen.

‘She does look like you,’ adds Gwen. ‘Same eyes and nose.’

‘That does happen with siblings,’ Ianto says, plopping down into his chair. ‘I _was_ going to tell you all, she lives at the end of the road with her husband and two kids. She thinks I’m a civil servant. I thought I distracted her enough earlier, got her to stay away.’ He looks pointedly at Jack. ‘I can’t believe you encouraged her.’

Jack shrugs. ‘I couldn’t exactly stop her from introducing herself as your sister, could I? Now she’s safely out of the way again and my troops are going to get fed, I think I handled it well.’

‘Meeting the family is an important step in any relationship,’ Gwen teases.

Ianto leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, resisting the urge to tell her to shut up.

‘Let me know when the sandwiches are here,’ he says.

*~*TW*~*

Jack watches his team as they await Rhiannon’s return with the sandwiches. Gwen, Owen and Tosh seem to be playing some form of charades, miming out film and song titles for the others to guess. None of them seem particularly adept at the mime aspect of the game, leading to a wide variety of guesses, ranging from ‘ET’ to ‘The Bridge On The River Kwai’ for the same flailing actions from Owen (the answer was actually ‘Home Alone’, a film Jack remembers as he’d foiled a rogue Slitheen’s attack on the London premier).

Ianto has kept his eyes shut ever since Rhiannon left. The others have assumed he’s napping but Jack knows what it looks like when Ianto’s actually asleep and the lines around his mouth and eyes are too tight, too held in place to suggest he’s dozed off. No, he’s pretending to be asleep to avoid any more questions.

There’s no movement from the sphere, no noises or signs of life. Jack checks his watch – the sandwiches should be here soon.

‘You’re way off,’ Tosh says to Gwen and Owen as they misinterpret a strange thrusting action she’s performing.

‘Pulp Fiction,’ says Owen.

‘I said it was a song, not a film!’

Jack reaches out and brushes a finger against the back of Ianto’s hand.

‘Hmm?’ Ianto murmurs, his eyes still closed.

Jack twists in his chair and lowers his voice so the others can’t hear.

‘You okay in there?’ he asks.

‘Fine.’

‘I’m sorry if you think I overstepped or should have made your sister go away.’

Ianto cracks an eye open and focuses it on Jack. The he opens his other and rubs both eyes, pushing himself up straighter in his chair.

‘You know she was just being nosey, right?’ he says. ‘She wants to see what I do because I always give her vague answers when she asks me about work.’

‘Pretty ballsy of her to just walk right in here. Gwen put crime scene tape up outside.’

‘No one around here is going to pay much mind to that. It’s practically an invitation.’

Ianto watches the others for a moment, Gwen and Owen still failing to guess whatever song it is that Tosh is acting out for them.

‘I never thought this would happen,’ he says. ‘I thought I could keep her away from Torchwood, away from knowing the dangers of what I do.’

‘She still doesn’t know anything, not really… Would you tell her the truth, if you could?’

‘We’re not allowed to do that.’

Ianto’s response is so automatic that Jack is reminded suddenly that Ianto’s Torchwood career had started at Torchwood One, where protocol and mantras were everything. He’s proven time and again that their ethos is one he’s happy to break but every now and again there’s a flash of Yvonne in how he approaches an unfamiliar situation.

He thinks of the conversations he’s had with Tosh recently, of the weekend she has booked off soon to see her mother. Despite everything that has happened to her with Torchwood, she’s been so happy and upbeat recently, playful when she’s not laser-focused on her work. He thinks of Gwen and the paperwork they’d gone over this morning, Jack agreeing that Rhys can come in to the Hub for her scans and whatever else she might need during her pregnancy. He thinks of Owen, the spark he’s had since Tosh began working on her project to restore him to a much more normal life.

Torchwood is a huge part of all of their lives but he doesn’t want it to be the only thing that defines them. He can’t be responsible for that, not anymore.

‘What if I said it was okay for you to tell her?’ he says. ‘Aliens aren’t exactly as hidden as they used to be. Gwen has Rhys, and I’ve given Tosh my blessing to share a little of what we do with her mother, if she wants… It could be good for you.’

Ianto shakes his head.

‘I get why Gwen had to share with Rhys, with someone outside of us lot. I get it. I just don’t think I need that.’

‘Why not?’

Ianto looks at him, their heads close together, Jack’s fingers still resting against the back of his hand on the arm of the chair.

‘Because I have you,’ he says.

Jack’s about to respond, though his brain doesn’t quite know what his mouth is about to reveal, when Rhiannon re-appears, unzipping the door to let herself back in.

‘Sandwiches!’ she announces. She walks in, a fat pile of sandwiches wobbling on a plate.

Ianto clears his throat and pulls his hand away from Jack’s.

‘I brought red sauce too,’ she adds, switching the plate into one hand and pulling a bottle of ketchup out of her coat pocket.

‘You’re a star,’ Gwen says as she takes the sandwich off the top of the pile then accepts the bottle of ketchup.

Jack accepts his own sandwich, thanking Rhiannon. He chews it thoughtfully. Owen takes the plate with the remaining sandwich, pretending he’s going to eat it in a few minutes when it’s cooled down. Jack likes it when Owen accepts food that he can’t actually eat because inevitably Jack gets to finish it off when no-one’s looking.

‘Glad I could help,’ Rhiannon says. She stands at the edge of the crater, looking at the sphere. ‘What is this then?’

‘Came off a plane,’ Ianto says. ‘Boring, like I told you earlier.’

‘Funny looking to have come off a plane.’

‘New military plane, they were testing some design changes.’

Jack would be impressed at the lies Ianto is spinning off the cuff if he hadn’t seen him at it before. It’s a useful skill in their line of work. Some excuses – military, Hollywood, gas leak - can cover all manner of sins.

Rhiannon nods along with Ianto’s words but Jack can see she’s not entirely convinced.

‘How come you all have to sit around here with it?’ she asks.

‘Waiting for the military to come and get it,’ says Jack. ‘They prefer to do these things under cover of darkness when they can so we’re just making sure nobody gets near it until they get here.’

‘Fun for you lot then, just waiting around.’

‘It’s good to have a quiet day now and again,’ Jack says, offering her one of his gentler, civilian-placating grins.

The sound of their chewing is interrupted by a clunk from the sphere. A split has appeared around the middle, now prising the sphere apart. The top lifts from the bottom, revealing an inner band of metal and what looks like several camera lenses.

Jack gets to his feet in time with Ianto.

‘Rhiannon, you need to go,’ he says to his sister, already grabbing her shoulders to turn her towards the door.

The sphere emits a low electronic sound and a circle of red light spreads out from the metal band, creeping along the floor and up over them all.

‘Jack, what’s it-,’ Gwen starts.

She doesn’t get to finish her question. The sphere emits another beep - louder, higher - and Jack feels himself crumple to the ground, blacking out.

*~*TW*~*

Jack comes to filled with fear. For a moment, he’s disorientated and unsure whether he has died or just been knocked unconscious. Ice grips his heart at the thought that if he’d died, he doesn’t know what that means for his team who were right there with him.

As he opens his eyes, he’s able to calm himself. He hasn’t died, it doesn’t feel like a resurrection. He does have a banging headache and a dry mouth though.

Someone says his name. He blinks to clear the spots in front of his eyes and pushes himself up on his elbows.

‘Woah, steady, let me look at you.’

It’s Owen. He had been crouched beside a woozy looking Gwen at one of the camp chairs but he scuttles over to Jack on his knees as Jack moves to get up. He presses a hand against Jack’s shoulder, stopping him from moving.

‘Give me a second, Jack. My kit’s in the boot so this’ll be a rudimentary test.’

He holds his index finger up in front of Jack, in line with Jack’s nose. Jack knows the drill. He obediently follows Owen’s finger, flitting his eyes left to right, and then brushes Owen aside.

‘See? I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me. How’s everybody else?’

He gets to his feet and shakes his head slightly as if clearing water from his ears. He can hear a faint ringing. Bread and half-eaten fish fingers litter the ground. The sphere has closed up, looking just as it had done before knocking them all out.

Gwen is in one of the chairs, rubbing her temples. Owen has moved on to helping Tosh, using the same basic tests as he had with Jack before helping her up into the chair she’d slid off. Over by the door, Ianto hovers over Rhiannon, still unconscious on the ground.

‘Everybody alright?’ he asks.

‘I’ve had worse hangovers,’ Gwen claims, still rubbing her head. Tosh gives a shaky thumbs up when Jack looks at her and he nods back.

‘We were out for a while, it’s getting dark out,’ says Owen. ‘I reckon whatever that thing did knocked out everybody nearby too or we’d have had visitors by now.’

‘Even Jonny would have come looking for Rhiannon now,’ says Ianto, taking his sister’s hand and holding it between both of his, warming it. ‘Even if it’s just because he’s wondering where his dinner is.’

‘Jonny – that’s your brother-in-law? Big guy, curly hair?’ asks Gwen. Ianto nods. ‘I spoke to him earlier, he was leader of the pack.’

Ianto grimaces. ‘Sorry.’

Jack comes to stand next to Ianto, resting a hand briefly on his back. Rhiannon’s skin is pale and wan; Jack can see her eyes fluttering about under her eyelids.

‘Owen, have you looked Rhiannon over?’ he asks.

‘Give me a second, I’m still feeling a little wobbly myself,’ Owen replies. He’s still fussing over Tosh who’s shooing him away with one hand whilst trying to load something up on her scanner with the other.

‘What happened?’ asks Gwen. ‘Did we activate it?’

Owen leaves Tosh to her work and comes over to check on Rhiannon. He takes her wrist and starts counting her pulse.

Jack spots something in the grass behind Owen, irregular pairs of scuffmarks leading out of the door. He squeezes Ianto’s shoulder and steps around Rhiannon’s feet to go and look at the markings in more detail. He squats down, frowning at them. Too small to be human footsteps, with slight tears in the blades of grass. He pulls a blackened few blades up out of the ground and sniffs them – burnt.

‘I think we’ve got a problem, Jack,’ says Tosh.

‘I was just starting to think the same myself.’

He twists his neck to look back at Tosh. She holds her scanner up and points it towards him so he can see the image on the screen – an empty spaceship.

He drops the burnt grass and stands up.

‘Ianto, is there any woodland nearby?’

Ianto looks up from Rhiannon, who has started to murmur and turn her head.

‘Just down the hill, maybe half a mile from here. Why?’ he says.

‘The Piklun home planet is wooded. They might head to the trees for cover, for something familiar.’

‘I’m just programming the scanner to try and find them,’ says Tosh. ‘If they’re carrying any technology that’s similar to the ship, it should find a match. It’ll need a few minutes to learn what it needs to from the ship.’

‘Good work, Tosh. Let’s go to the SUV, get what we -,’

Rhiannon, now roused, says,

‘What happened?’

Ianto’s eyes flick up to meet Jack’s and Jack knows he’s looking to him to know what to say here.

‘Little accident with our friend here,’ says Jack. He smiles down at her as Ianto and Owen help her into a sitting position. ‘Our pals at the military forgot to mention some of its defence mechanisms were still active. You’ll be fine, just a little stun. Owen here’s a great doctor, he’ll check you over.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Owen asks her.

‘Like the first time I tried sambuca,’ she groans.

‘I remember that,’ says Ianto. ‘You threw up in mam’s rose bush and tried to blame it on next door’s cat.’

‘Be quiet you or I’ll tell everyone here about the first time you tried to buy cigarettes,’ she says. Ianto mimes zipping his lips and helps his sister up into a chair. Jack makes a mental note to ask about the cigarette story later – it’s not one he’s heard before and he suspects there are entertaining reasons why Ianto has never brought it up.

‘We should get you back home,’ says Owen, looking to Ianto. ‘At the end of the street, yeah? She seems alright, I can help you walk her there.’

Ianto nods and Rhiannon gets to her feet shakily.

‘What about you lot?’ she says. ‘What will you do now?’

Tosh’s scanner beeps. She looks down at her.

‘It’s got it, Jack. You were right, looks like they’ve headed down into the woods.’

‘What’s down in the woods?’ Rhiannon asks.

‘The, uh, the military. They got lost trying to get here to collect this,’ says Ianto. Jack notices her eyes narrow. Ianto’s stories don’t seem to be cutting it for her anymore. ‘Come on, let’s get you home and make sure Jonny and the kids are alright.’

Ianto and Owen support Rhiannon out of the tent, her footsteps still uneven and theirs only a bit better. Jack can still hear the ringing in his own head and desperately wants a drink.

He turns to Gwen and Tosh.

‘Let’s gear up. The Pikluns are small but if they’ve decided they like the look of this planet, they’ll be shooting to kill.’

*~*TW*~*

Rhiannon shrugs Ianto and Owen off pretty quickly as they get out of the tent.

‘I can manage, I can manage,’ she says, pausing for a moment to concentrate on her balance.

‘Can you check over my niece and nephew?’ Ianto asks Owen as they continue down the road, now lit by streetlamps. Ianto is unsettled by the quiet – there’s never normally a dull moment on the Cromwell Estate and the stillness of the place right now is eerie.

‘Sure,’ Owen replies. ‘I won’t be able to check everyone though if it took out the whole estate. They’re probably fine though, we’re all alright. There’ll only really be a problem if someone hit their head on the way down.’

Rhiannon picks up her pace at Owen’s words and Ianto matches it. They get to the house and Rhiannon pushes the front door open, not needing a key. Ianto’s always thought she’s mad not to lock her front door living where she does but she only ever does if they’re all out of the house or going to bed.

‘Micha, David!’ she calls as she rushes down the hallway, Ianto at her heels. ‘Jonny!’

Micha is squashed up in the beanbag in front of the TV, an Xbox controller dropped in her lap. David is passed out on the armchair but his eyelids drift open at the sound of his mum calling his name.

‘What?’ he says, thick-tongued. ‘Did I fall asleep?’

Rhiannon bends over him and takes her face in both of her hands, scanning him.

‘Mum, what?’ he says. ‘Who’s that with Uncle Ianto?’

‘Someone he works with, a doctor. He’s going to check you over, okay, sweetheart?’

She pinches his cheeks and swoops down on Micha, who’s still out cold. Ianto can see her breathing steadily, her little chest rising and falling. Owen steps around her to look David over.

‘Where’s your dad?’ Rhiannon asks David, sliding into the beanbag with Micha and pulling her onto her lap.

‘He was upstairs,’ says David, following Owen’s finger.

‘I’ll go and check,’ says Ianto.

He leaves the other three in Owen’s capable hands and heads upstairs to look for his brother-in-law. The four rooms upstairs all have doors onto the same small landing and they’re all open so it doesn’t take long to find Jonny, lying face down on his and Rhiannon’s bed. Ianto ducks his head in and can see drool spilling out of the corner of Jonny’s mouth and hears what is clearly a snore escape through his nose. He shuts the door on Jonny and goes back downstairs.

‘Is he there?’ Rhiannon asks, a bleary-eyed Micha now awake on her lap.

‘I strongly suspect he was sleeping when it happened and has continued to do so,’ says Ianto.

Owen gets up from checking Micha.

‘Everyone looks fine, just take it easy and drink plenty of water, yeah?’ he says to Rhiannon, who nods. He turns to Ianto. ‘We’d better get going.’

‘Right,’ says Ianto. Owen says goodbye to them all and leaves. Ianto starts to follow him but Rhiannon calls out to him, struggling to get herself and Micha both up out of the beanbag.

‘Ianto, wait!’

‘I’ve gotta go, Rhi, my job here isn’t done. I’ll come and see you all before we go, okay?’

Rhiannon settles Micha down next to David, who for once doesn’t protest having to share the seat with his sister, and follows Ianto to the front door.

‘You’re not telling me the truth are you?’ she says in a hushed voice, not wanting the kids to hear.

Ianto pauses in the doorway, one hand on the door handle, his back to his sister as he asks,

‘What?’

‘About what’s going on here! Some sort of weapon falls off an experimental military plane and you and your “civil servant”’, she air quotes the words, ‘buddies show up to deal with it and nobody else does? And that lady, Tosh, it’s like she was saying something came out of that sphere, something _alive_. _’_

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I might not be as smart as you, Ianto, but please don’t treat me like I’m stupid.’

Ianto flips the door handle down and opens the door. He steps outside and then turns to face Rhiannon.

‘I don’t want you to worry about it,’ he says. ‘We’re taking care of it, just promise me you’ll stay inside? I’ll be back soon.’

‘And then you’ll tell me what’s going on?’

‘I, uh-,’

‘Ianto, come on!’ Owen shouts from down the street, breaking into a jog to get back to the SUV.

‘I’ll see you later,’ Ianto says, not giving Rhiannon the chance to retort before he dashes off, catching up to Owen and disappearing down the dark street.

‘Ianto! Ianto Jones, you come back here now!’

She’s not surprised when he ignores her. She slams the door and slaps her hand against the window pane.

‘Why’re you shouting at Uncle Ianto, mum?’ says Micha, appearing behind her. She winds herself around Rhiannon like a cat, stepping on her feet. Rhiannon reaches a hand down to run it through her hair, messy now from her time spent passed out on the beanbag.

‘Sometimes, Micha, brothers don’t listen. You know that.’

‘But you always tell me not to shout at David.’

‘Shh, shh,’ Rhiannon says, smoothing Micha’s hair. She steers her around and leads her back into the living room.

David’s head appears over the back of the armchair.

‘Was it a spaceship then?’ he asks. ‘In the tent?’

Rhiannon is about to tell him to sit down and stop wittering on about spaceships when something finally clicks. All of Ianto’s lies, all those funny stories in the papers, the rumours you hear in the pubs in Cardiff…

‘Let’s get your dad up to sort you some tea,’ she says. ‘I’ve got to go out again.’

*~*TW*~*

Jack, Gwen and Tosh are geared up and ready to go down into the woods when Ianto and Owen get back to the SUV. They’ve got actual guns and stun guns clipped to their waists and Jack has slung a longer gun over his shoulder. Ianto recognises it from the archives - it fires a net that instantly wraps around whatever it catches.

‘Everything good?’ Jack asks as Ianto and Owen start grabbing what they need.

‘They’ll be fine,’ says Ianto, checking the safety on his Sig.

‘Good. Let’s go round up some aliens. They still down in the woods, Tosh?’

‘Looks like they haven’t really moved since we tracked them there,’ Tosh says, checking the PDA screen.

‘Alright. Everyone be careful – we’re going to give them the chance to surrender and see about finding their way home, but I’ve no idea how well they’ll take it.’

They all nod and fall into formation alongside Jack, trudging past the tent and following the slope of the hill down towards the trees.

Ianto tries to focus on the task at hand but he can’t get Rhiannon out of his head. Jack had given him permission to open up to her, to share his life with the only family he has, but he’s still struggling with the idea. If she knows, she’ll worry, she’ll be checking in on him and wanting to hear about everything. He knows he can trust her not to tell, there were plenty of things they kept to themselves growing up that were taken to their dad’s grave and beyond but this is different. They’re not in this together and in Ianto’s experience, just knowing the name Torchwood can put a price on your head.

Maybe he can fabricate a new cover story, something closer to the truth without giving everything away. She’s clearly finding holes in the civil servant tale he’s spun her over the past few years. He’d only told her he was a civil servant because it sounded so boring and normal that he thought she’d never bother asking questions. Maybe he should have told her he was an accountant.

He looks at Jack, calm and commanding as he leads the team. He can’t believe Rhi has got so close to unearthing his other big secret already today. Now she has basically all of the information she needs to connect the dots and Ianto bets she will. 

As he studies Jack, the way the moonlight falls across his face as he jokes with Gwen about Pikluns actually being little green men, the thought that he could share that part of his life with Rhiannon warms him inside. She hadn’t seemed too phased by the idea of him dating a man even though he’d never strictly told her he was bisexual (on one drunken Christmas Eve once, however, he had heavily implied it and hoped she’d pick it up without him having to say the words; he still hadn’t told anyone about the feelings he had back then).

Things with Jack are more complicated than just that though. Ianto imagines Rhiannon would find it scandalous enough that he’s dating his boss without having to know all the extra details like ‘Oh yeah, he’s immortal, by the way’. How did one introduce their boyfriend to the family when it would become obvious over time that the man didn’t age?

Not that he or Jack had ever referred to each other as boyfriend. Jack tended to get a bit flippant around the whole concept of being a couple even though they’d somehow fallen into all of the rhythms of couplehood – going out for dinner, spending most nights together, Jack having a key to Ianto’s flat and a toothbrush on his sink.

When they’re busy, living their frantic day-to-day Torchwood life, Ianto rarely gets a moment to dwell on these things. He doesn’t have time to wonder about where things are going or what their drastically differing life spans mean. All he knows is, when he’s with Jack, he’s happy. Jack has this special smile, just for him. It’s so different from his mega-watt grin, it’s just a little quirk of the lips with everything else clear in his eyes, a warmth and fondness dancing there, waiting. It makes Ianto’s heart swell.

So he tells himself this: He doesn’t have long to live with Torchwood, he can’t kid himself. The average life span of a Torchwood operative is 31 but most of them didn’t start as young as he did. He’s on borrowed time so if he gets to spend even a few moments having Jack direct a smile like that at him, he’s going to take it and not worry about the rest.

He knows how he feels about Jack. He _thinks_ he knows how Jack feels about him. Maybe one day one of them will say it but Ianto doesn’t feel the need to, not yet.

They’re stepping through the woodland now, brushing low branches out of their faces and stomping brambles down so they don’t get caught on their legs.

‘Everyone used to say this place was haunted,’ says Ianto, stepping over a large tree root. ‘We’d dare each other to come in here.’

‘Ohhh, don’t tell me about ghosts now,’ Gwen moans.

‘We’ve come in here after aliens and you’re worried about ghosts?’ Jack asks Gwen pointedly.

‘If there are ghosts, I don’t think it’s Rift related,’ Tosh says. ‘It doesn’t come this far out that we’ve seen.’

‘I’m pretty sure it was just a homeless guy,’ says Ianto, ‘making noise to scare us all off.’

They’ve reached a slight clearing in the woods, free of brambles and low branches.

‘How much further in, Tosh?’ asks Gwen.

They all pause as Tosh checks her PDA.

‘A few hundred metres maybe?’ says Tosh, glancing down at her PDA. ‘It’s hard to tell, it’s not calibrated well for short distances.’

A scuffle behind them, something moving through the trees, something more than the wind.

‘What was that?’ Gwen whispers, turning around, her torch held high.

Jack presses a finger to his lips and ducks down, swinging his torch at a lower level. Owen and Gwen unholster their guns, Ianto moves his fingers to rest against the butt of his.

Something moves in the darkness behind them. Then it trips over a tree root, landing at their feet in their clearing.

‘Oh great,’ sighs Owen, putting his gun away. ‘First Rhys, now this.’

‘Rhiannon!’ Ianto hisses, reaching a hand down to pull her up. ‘What are you doing here? I told you to stay home!’

Rhiannon brushes herself off, wiping dirt off her jeans and hands.

‘It’s aliens, isn’t it? That’s what you’re all looking for? That’s what you do?’ she says.

No one replies, glancing between one another.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she asks again.

Jack reaches a hand out towards her, going to take her gently by the arm.

‘Mrs Davies, it’s really not safe for you to be here right now,’ he says.

Rhiannon pulls her arm away from Jack.

‘If it’s not safe for me to be here then why is my little brother out here with you?’

‘Rhi-,’ Ianto starts.

‘Ianto is highly trained and very good at what he does,’ says Jack firmly. ‘We all are. That doesn’t make what we do totally safe but it’s much safer for us to be here than you.’

Rhiannon squints around at them all, struggling to see in the dark with their torchlights shining in her eyes. Ianto wants to be furious with her but all he can manage right now is fear.

‘You need to get out of here, Rhi, come on, I’ll take you,’ he says.

‘How did you get caught up in all of this, Ianto?’ she says quietly. When her eyes go scared like this she reminds Ianto of their mother, so fretful, so skittish. ‘You’ve got a _gun_ , for God’s sake.’

Ianto pulls his suit jacket in closer, hiding the handle of the gun from his sister even though it’s already too late, she’s seen it. He looks at Jack who gives him a small nod.

‘I will tell you everything. I promise this time, I really do. Just let me get you out of here so we can sort this out first and I’ll tell you, I swear.’

‘You’d better,’ she says.

Ianto is about to take her arm and lead her away when something crashes through the undergrowth just behind her. The crashing builds around them, surrounding them, something is hacking away through the brambles and overgrown weeds, drawing closer to them.

‘Oh my God,’ say Rhiannon and Gwen in unison.

The Pikluns are small, just as Jack described. They come up to just past Ianto’s knee, shrunken humanoid looking aliens with skinny bodies, long heads and bulbous eyes. Some are red, a bright shade of scarlet, and others are lime green, surprisingly bright in the darkness of the woods.

There are a dozen of them, circling around them now, small, pistol-like weapons pointed at the team.

Jack holds his hands up.

‘Let’s keep this friendly,’ he says. ‘I don’t know where you were supposed to land, but this is Earth. It’s a protected planet, not-,’

The largest Piklun pulls the trigger on its weapon and a laser blast zips past Jack’s ear, singeing the tree behind him.

‘This planet is ours,’ it says.

‘Put the gun down and we can see about getting you turned around, getting you home.’

The Piklun fires again, closer to Jack’s head this time. He ducks.

‘No. This is our home now. This planet is ours.’

‘Come on, Jack,’ mutters Owen. ‘We can take these guys, let’s go.’

Jack straightens to his full height and steps closer to the lead Piklun. The other aliens track his movement with their own weapons.

‘One more chance,’ says Jack. ‘Put the weapons down and we will help you. Fire again, different story.’

The Pikluns draw their circle in tighter. The leader stares up into Jack’s face, defiant. It raises its arm, readying the angle of its weapon to fire straight into Jack’s grinning face, and squeezes the trigger.

‘Jack!’ Ianto cries, throwing himself at Jack, knocking him down. He feels the heat of the Piklun’s laser blast surge past him, burning through his sleeve and clipping his shoulder.

Chaos erupts all around them. Owen, Gwen and Tosh have opened fire and the Pikluns are firing back. Ianto scrambles up off Jack and pulls his own gun out, flicking the safety off ready to fire but he can’t get anything in his eyeline long enough. The Pikluns are fast and swarming, heading towards the one person who doesn’t seem to be fighting back.

Ianto swings his gun like a club and knocks two Pikluns aside to get to Rhiannon.

‘Run!’ he tells her, loosing off a bullet as a Piklun hurls itself through mid-air to get to him. ‘Get out of here, go!’

This time, she actually listens. Covering her ears against the gun blasts she sprints away, back in the direction she’d come from.

He feels a Piklun crawling up his leg, its spindly fingers digging into his thigh as it hauls itself up him. He kicks out but can’t shake it. Jack appears and punches it off.

‘You really shouldn’t throw yourself in front of me like that,’ he says sternly.

‘Sorry, bad instinct,’ Ianto replies, using his gun like a baton to knock a Piklun off Tosh’s back.

‘Fight it!’ Jack shouts. ‘Let me take the hits!’

‘No.’

‘ _Ianto_ …’ Jack growls.

‘Oi, you two, stop having a domestic and give us a hand, would you?’ Gwen shouts up to them. She’s been forced up against a tree, her face mud-streaked, one leg outstretched, firing away at three Pikluns as they attempt to bring her down.

Jack kicks them away and helps Gwen up. One more gunshot echoes behind Ianto and there’s silence. He takes in the destruction that surrounds them.

‘I didn’t want it to be like this,’ Jack says, looking down at the bodies of the Pikluns, all still now.

‘None of us did,’ says Gwen.

‘We did what we had to,’ Owen adds. He’s leaning up against a tree with one arm, his foot perched on a root. ‘Anybody hurt?’

Ianto can feel his shoulder burning away from the blast he’d deflected, his skin on fire, but he joins the others in saying he’s fine.

‘I need to go and find Rhiannon,’ he says.

‘Are you sure you’re-?’ Jack asks, reaching out to the tear in Ianto’s jacket. Ianto leans back away from his touch.

‘Yup. Gotta go.’

Without a backwards glance, he rushes out of the clearing, leaving the others to tidy up for once. He’s got another mess he needs to deal with.

*~*TW*~*

He catches up to Rhiannon partway up the hill. She’s panting, still trying to catch her breath from running. She has a few scratches across her cheeks from pushing her way blindly through the trees but at least she made it out of there okay.

‘Ianto!’ she says as he runs up to her. ‘What happened back there? Is everything okay?’

He puts his hands to his waist and bends over slightly, needing to catch his own breath after sprinting uphill.

‘We’ve sorted it. Everyone’s fine.’

Like Jack, Rhiannon reaches out to the tear in his shoulder but Ianto jolts out of her way. If no one asks him about it he can keep pretending for a while that it doesn’t sting like hell.

Rhiannon folds her arms and looks out over the hill, down towards the lights of the motorway and the Severn Bridge.

‘Rhi?’ he says, stepping closer.

‘This is what you do then, is it? Fight aliens?’

‘We don’t always fight them, not if we can help it. You saw Jack offered to help them.’

‘It’s dangerous though, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve kept it from me this whole time?’

Ianto sighs. He stands beside her and turns to look out over the view, watching the cars wind their way through the orange glow of the M4. Looking up at the sky, he can see more stars scattered through the sky than he can on the average night in Cardiff.

‘It can be,’ he admits. ‘We’re trained though, as best as we can be, and it’s a decision we’ve all made. To protect people.’

‘When did it all start? When you moved back here?’

Ianto shakes his head.

‘Before that, in London. I went for a job interview, it wasn’t clear what for and it turned out to be for Torchwood – that’s what we’re called. Things… fell apart there and I came back here, joined the Cardiff branch. Want to know a funny thing about Cardiff?’

Rhiannon squints at him, confused by his sudden levity.

‘What?’ she says.

‘The city is built on a tear in space and time. We call it the Rift. That’s where the aliens come from, they just fall through it from wherever the other end is and show up here. In Cardiff, of all places.’

Rhiannon doesn’t respond for a moment. Ianto starts to worry she thinks he’s completely crazy, but then her shoulders start to shake. She’s laughing.

‘If I hadn’t just seen it for myself,’ she says, ‘I’d be thinking you were on drugs right now.’

Ianto joins her in laughing, feeling the relief of it breaking the tension, the bursts of sound falling from their mouths creating warm puffs that float away into the cold night air. Rhiannon rubs her arms against the chill.

‘I found it hard to believe myself at first,’ Ianto says. ‘The things I’ve seen, Rhi…’

‘You’ll tell me more about it some time, yeah? I’ve got so many questions right now, I don’t know where to start.’

‘I’ll… tell you what I can. You have to promise me not to tell anyone else though, not even Jonny. You know he can’t be trusted with things like this and we’re supposed to be a covert operation.’

‘Promise. And you promise me you’ll keep safe? Doing what you do… it seems dangerous.’

‘I can promise to _try_ ,’ he says carefully. He can see the rest of the team emerging from the woods now, all fine this time round but all the scars of their past encounters are there to see for anyone who looks hard enough. He’ll certainly leave those stories out of whatever he does choose to tell Rhiannon.

She shivers and stomps her feet.

‘Looks like I better leave you to it. You’ll come round soon though and we’ll talk?’

‘I will.’

Ianto thinks she’s about to leave but instead she sidles up closer to him. She nods her head down towards the approaching team.

‘It’s Jack, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘The guy from the restaurant, the one Susan saw you with.’

Ianto’s ears burn.

‘Are you going to let me keep any of my secrets tonight?’ he says.

She grins.

‘That’s quite the pull you’ve made there,’ she says.

‘I mean, I don’t want to brag…’

‘You do, you absolutely do, I can see it in your eyes.’

‘Okay, maybe a little. He is very handsome.’

‘Yeah, and he looks like he knows it too,’ Rhiannon says, watching the way Jack leads the team up the hill with his usual swagger. ‘You be careful with him.’

‘Don’t you have children to be putting to bed?’ Ianto says, an eyebrow raised.

Rhiannon backs off.

‘Fine, fine, I know when I’m being asked to leave. Good night, Ianto.’

‘Good night, Rhi.’

She gives his hand a squeeze and leaves.

Even though he knows he’s going to have to get up again soon and help the team deal with the Pikluns back in the woods, Ianto lowers himself to the ground and sits. He pulls his knees up and rests his arms on top of them. His shoulder is still burning but he doesn’t feel like mentioning it to Owen just yet.

After a few minutes, Jack joins him, sitting in the mud. The others keep on walking, though not without Owen shouting,

‘Y’know, this next bit kind of seems like a Ianto job.’

‘Team work makes the dream work,’ Jack calls back at him. He turns to Ianto. ‘I read that on a poster once.’

‘And here I was thinking that was a Jack Harkness original.’

‘All good with your sister?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I think it will be. And she won’t tell anyone, I trust her when she says that.’

‘Good.’

Ianto lets one of his hands drift down to the ground and tears up a few blades of grass. He shreds them in his fingers, looking out at the lights of the bridge down below.

‘I used to come and sit out here as a kid sometimes,’ he says. ‘If dad was in one of his moods, shouting and throwing stuff. I’d come down here and dream about getting away, going anywhere but here.’

‘I wasn’t like that as a kid, at all,’ Jack says.

Ianto is surprised. ‘No?’

‘I guess I was kind of spoilt. A good home, miles of beaches to play on, knowing I’d grow up to join my dad and his crew on their boat. I was happy with that.’

‘And then…’

‘You know what happened next. Boeshane didn’t seem like the place to be anymore.’

Ianto nods his head in the direction of the stars.

‘Can you see it? Can you see Boeshane from here?’

Jack shakes his head. ‘Totally different galaxy.’

Ianto pulls up some more grass and rips it up. Jack is still looking up at the stars, the white speckles of their distant lights reflected in his eyes.

‘Rhiannon…’ Ianto says slowly. ‘She asked about us, about me and you. There was this whole _thing_ where one of her friends saw us in that French restaurant a while ago and she put two and two together…’

‘And what did you tell her?’

Ianto tosses the pieces of shredded grass up into the air, scattering them on the wind.

‘I didn’t deny it. I didn’t know what to tell her because I don’t really know what we are, Jack.’

‘And that bothers you?’

‘Not most of the time, not when I don’t think about it.’

‘So, yes?’

‘Jack, I’m your archivist. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I kind of like to put names to things. Then I know where they go, what happens next.’

Jack sighs.

‘You think I don’t like the word couple, don’t like _being_ in a couple.’

Ianto shrugs. ‘We’ve never really talked about it.’

Jack shifts round to face Ianto.

‘That’s not true,’ he says. ‘The word, yeah, sure, it’s sort of old-fashioned to me. But being with someone like that? Sharing things like that, having a life together? It’s one of the best things there is. People don’t like being like that with me though. I’ve tried. Even when they know the truth about what I am, they can’t handle it as they start to grow older and I never change. They resent me and even if I still love them they die resenting me.’

Ianto is stunned. He’s stung by the hurt in Jack’s words, the years of being abandoned and left behind. He reaches over and takes both of Jack’s hands in his.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘But Jack… Can you trust me when I say that’s not something I’d ever feel for you? I could never resent you like that.’

He holds Jack’s gaze, doesn’t let him look away. He wants the other man to trust him, to feel it radiating out of him.

‘When you say it… I can see myself believing it,’ Jack says.

‘Good. I’d like to be with you, Jack. As a couple or whatever we’d call it. I think that’s what we’ve sort of accidentally become, so, yeah, if you’re going to make me say it, and make me feel about twelve years old for saying it – I’d like to be your boyfriend. If that’s what you want too.’

Jack uses Ianto’s hands to pull him in closer, drawing him into a kiss. Ianto is acutely aware of where they are and who could be watching but he doesn’t want to pull away or ruin the moment.

‘Okay,’ says Jack as they break apart. ‘Me and you… We’re me and you.’

‘A couple then?’

Jack nods. ‘A couple.’

Jack gets to his feet, pulling Ianto up with him. He hugs Ianto and holds him close to him for a moment, resting his face against his neck and running his fingers through the hair on the back of his head, breathing deeply.

When he releases Ianto, he’s finally able to get a look at the rip in his shoulder and see the red-raw skin beneath.

‘You told Owen you were fine,’ he scolds, leaning closer to the wound to inspect it.

‘Oh, that,’ says Ianto glancing down at it. ‘I sort of forgot about it. Now that you mention it though, it does rather smart.’

‘Come on, he needs to check you over. Then I’ve got some alien corpses to deal with.’

‘You take me to all the nicest places.’

Jack grins and winks before setting off, knowing Ianto will fall in line alongside him.

**Author's Note:**

> There we go then. I knew going into this series that I wanted to build out the messy Janto 'couple' conversation from COE having built things up a bit more to get to this point. A fair bit of the characterisation (particularly Jack) felt off to me in COE whereas this hopefully feels more organically built up on what was established in the wonky TW canon pre-series 3. I did always like Rhiannon and her interrogation of Ianto though so she's ended up with a lot of screen time here!


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